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英语美文：对自己宽容何不给他人多一点耐心

外语 | 用考网 2017-08-08 11:18:01

[摘要]让人奇怪的是，和别人的过错比起来，我们自身的过错往往不显得那样糟糕。我想，其原因应该是我们知晓一切导致自己犯错的情况，因此能够设法谅解自己的错误，而别人的错误却不能谅解。

It is curious that our own offenses should seem so much less heinous than the offenses of others. I suppose the reason is that we know all the circumstances that have occasioned them and so manage to excuse in ourselves what we cannot excuse in others.

让人奇怪的是，和别人的过错比起来，我们自身的过错往往不显得那样糟糕。我想，其原因应该是我们知晓一切导致自己犯错的情况，因此能够设法谅解自己的错误，而别人的错误却不能谅解。

We turn our attention away from our own defects, and when we are forced by untoward events to consider them, find it easy to condone them. For all I know we are right to do this; they are part of us and we must accept the good and bad in ourselves together.

我们对自己的缺点不甚关注，哪怕是在深陷困境而不得不正视它们的时候，我们也会很容易就宽恕自己。据我所知，我们这样做是正确的。缺点是我们自身的一部分，我们必须接纳自己的好和坏。

But when we come to judge others, it is not by ourselves as we really are that we judge them, but by an image that we have formed of ourselves from which we have left out everything that offends our vanity or would discredit us in the eyes of the world. To take a trivial instance: how scornful we are when we catch someone out telling a lie; but who can say that he has never told not one, but a hundred?

但是，当我们评判别人的时候，我们不是通过真实的自我来评判，而是用一种自我形象来评判，这种自我形象完全摒弃了所有触犯我们虚荣心或任何会伤害到自己在世人眼中体面形象的东西。举一个小例子来说：当觉察到别人说谎时，我们是多么地蔑视他啊！但是，谁能够说自从未说过谎？可能还不止一百次呢。

There is not much to choose between men. They are all a hotchpotch of greatness and littleness, of virtue and vice, of nobility and baseness. Some have more strength of character, or more opportunity, and so in one direction or another give their instincts freer play, but potentially they are the same.

人和人之间没什么大的差别。他们皆是伟大与渺小、善良与邪恶、高尚与低俗的混合体。有的人性格比较坚毅，机会也比较多，因而在某些方面能够更自由地发挥自己的禀赋，但是人类的潜能却都是相同的。

For my part, I do not think I am any better or any worse than most people, but I know that if I set down every action in my life and every thought that has crossed my mind, the world would consider me a monster of depravity. The knowledge that these reveries are common to all men should inspire one with tolerance to oneself as well as to others. It is well also if they enable us to look upon our fellows, even the most eminent and respectable, with humor, and if they lead us to take ourselves not too seriously.

至于我自己，我认为自己并不比大多数人更好或者更差，但是我知道，假如我记下生命中的每一次举动和每一个掠过我脑海的想法，那么世界就会将我视为一个堕落的怪物。每个人都会有这样的怪念头，这样的认识应当能够启发我们宽容自己也宽容他人。同时，如果因此我们得以用幽默的态度看待他人（即使是天下最优秀最令人尊敬的人），如果我们也因此不把自己看得过于重要，那也是很有裨益的。